The courage of Perpetua

In the year 201 the Roman Emperor, Septimius Severus, who had become the head of the empire in 197, issued an edict forbidding anyone to become a Jew or a Christian. The Roman governor in Carthage in North Africa, Publius Aelius Hilarianus, a man who was steeped in Roman idolatry and paganism, was eager to enforce the edict.

And so, immediately prior to some gladiatorial games celebrating the birthday of Septimius Severus’ son Geta, in March 203, he had a number of Christians arrested. Eventually six were put on trial: four men – Saturninus and Secundulus, who were slaves, Revocatus, and their teacher, Saturus – and two women – Felicitas (or Felicity) and Vibia Perpetua, a noble-born Roman matron who was 22 years old with a newborn son.

In typical Roman fashion, they were asked to offer a sacrifice to the gods for the safety of the emperor or face death. They all refused and on 7 March 203, five of them – Secundulus had died in prison – were martyred in the Roman amphitheatre in Carthage, the ruins of which can be seen to this day as a UNESCO World Heritage site in Tunis, Tunisia.

Now, we know the details about this incident because there is a prison diary that Perpetua kept while she was awaiting trial. After Perpetua’s death, a Christian author (some think it was Perpetua’s contemporary, Tertullian) took her diary, provided it with an Introduction, added Saturus’ own account of his time in prison, and finally concluded the book with details of the martyrs’ deaths.

When Perpetua was first imprisoned, she wrote in her diary: “I was terrified, as I had never experienced such darkness.” The prison cell was also jammed with prisoners so that the heat was stifling. And on top of all this, Perpetua was worried sick about her baby who was with her. Relief came from the help of two deacons, Tertius and Pomponius, who came to the prison – in so doing, they risked being imprisoned themselves – and they asked the Roman guards to move Perpetua and the others to a better part of the prison. Perpetua was able to cuddle her baby son and nurse him. Her mother also arrived with her brother and Perpetua gave her baby to them to look after for a number of days.

Perpetua’s father also came to the prison and desperately tried to convince Perpetua to give up her faith. Perpetua wrote in her diary: “My father not only wished to turn me from my purpose with arguments, but also persisted in trying to break down my faith through his affection for me. ‘Father’, said I, ‘do you see, for example, this vessel lying here – a jug, or whatever it is?’ ‘I see it’, said he. ‘Can one call anything by any other name than what it is?’ ‘No’, said he. ‘So neither can I call myself anything else than what I am, a Christian’.”

Perpetua’s father appears again in the diary at the time of the sentencing of Perpetua and her companions. A huge crowd had gathered to witness the sentencing in the public forum, and among them was Perpetua’s father, who arrived with her baby son. Again, in Perpetua’s words: “My father appeared on the scene with my boy, … begging me, ‘Pity your child.’ Then Hilarianus the procurator … said, ‘Spare your father’s grey hairs; spare your infant boy. Sacrifice for the safety of the emperor’. And I replied, ‘I am not going to’. ‘Are you a Christian?’ asked Hilarianus, and I said, ‘I am’. … Then he pronounced sentence against us all and condemned us to the beasts.”

As it turned out, Perpetua died at the hand of a gladiator. He hesitated to slit her throat, and the editor of her diary tells us that she guided his trembling hand to her throat.

Tertullian called her a “most courageous martyr”, and many years later, Augustine regularly remembered her martyrdom by annually preaching a sermon about her witness unto death.